TY PULLED AWAY the last strip of duct tape, took a deep breath and said, “I’m going in.”
He opened the heavy steel door that separated this section of the complex and stepped through, the bulky hazmat suit and the pistol holstered from a utility belt making it difficult to move. He closed the door behind him, and used the roll of duct tape to seal it again from the inside. When he was satisfied that the seal was air-tight, he said, “We’re secure again.”
Steele’s voice came over his earpiece. “We’re with you.”
He began walking towards the storage room. The hallways seemed normal enough – the glow of fluorescent lights was steady, no sound audible through the suit, no movement but him – but Ty’s heart was thrumming with suspense. What had Dawson found? Was he still alive? Would Ty himself make it out again?
Reaching the storage room, he tried to open the door and found it wouldn’t budge. He yanked harder and it moved slightly; he remembered that Dawson had also secured the inside of this room and he was pulling against tape. He pulled with all his strength and the door tore away from its seal. Moving cautiously, he looked into the room.
There was no sign of either Dawson or Latrobe. There was one stack of boxes that had been knocked over, papers scattered about, and there was a fist-sized glob of meat on the floor that made Ty swallow back a wave of nausea.
“Ty . . .?”
“I’m at the storage room, Steele. Nothing yet. Stay tuned . . .”
Stepping into the room, Ty closed the door and sealed it up with tape; then he set the tape roll down and hefted the pistol. He walked to the hole in the wall, stopped when he reached Dawson’s pile of bricks and the sledgehammer, and stared at the wooden door he’d seen on the monitor only half-an-hour earlier.
The door was closed. Dawson had to be on the other side of it.
Ty stepped up to the door and called out, “General Dawson . . .?”
“Is that you, Ty?”
It was Dawson’s voice. Ty felt a small surge of relief . . . but reminded himself to proceed with caution.
“Yes, sir.”
“Come in, Ty, but close the door behind you. Quickly.”
Ty pulled the heavy wooden door open, the hinges grating. He caught a glow from within and saw it emanated from a normal flashlight, not some ethereal device or creature. Dawson held the Maglite, aimed at his own face; it painted his already gaunt features with deeper, menacing shadows.
“The door,” he said, motioning.
Steele’s voice sounded in his headset. “Ty, is that—?” He pulled the door closed, struggling slightly with its weight. Steele’s voice cut out. “Steele?” There was no answer.
“They won’t receive anything so long as you’re in here and that door is shut,” Dawson said.
Ty looked around the room, but could see little by the dim flashlight beam. He stepped up to a wall and reached out to the stone surface, which he realized curved around him.
“Where’s Latrobe?”
Dawson aimed the flashlight beam towards a far corner of the chamber. “There.”
Ty followed the light and saw a pile of blackened, broken bones covered with ash and a few last shreds of clothing. He stepped back, repulsed. “What . . .?”
“He’s been trapped in here for over 200 years. There was almost nothing human left, just hunger. He attacked me but realized too late he couldn’t eat me. I used the flamethrower. He was suffering, and that way anything he might have carried died with him.”
“God,” muttered Ty.
Dawson moved the beam of light from Latrobe’s remains to the walls of the room. “This place was designed to be unassailable, on both natural and supernatural levels. Sound can pass through the door, but nothing else – not our communication devices, and not Moreby’s clairvoyance. In other words, I’m free of the hive mind in here.”
“So that’s why I had to come to you?”
Dawson gestured with some pages, and Ty recognized the ancient parchment sheets he’d seen on the video. “Well, these are why I couldn’t leave here.”
Ty stepped closer, trying to peer at the pages. “What are they?”
“Basically, Latrobe’s suicide note.” Dawson held a sheet up before the light and read: “‘I, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, am yet of sound mind, but my body is now anything but sound. I have been infected by a terrible ailment which, I believe, has killed my body and placed abominable appetites within it . . .’”
“HRV,” Ty said.
“Yes. He talks about being bitten by ‘one of Moreby’s damned fleas’, and when he realized what he was, and that Moreby had meant him to infect the entire New World, he immediately withdrew from public life and had himself sealed in this chamber, which he made sure was erased from all future plans.” Dawson lowered the papers and looked at the small mound of Latrobe’s bones. “My God . . . he condemned himself to be locked in here, in the dark, alone, for centuries, unable to feed or even communicate. Of course he went insane – anyone would.”
“So why are we here, General?”
Dawson gestured around the chamber. “I think Latrobe knew this room was impervious to exterior discovery; he wanted to put himself away where he’d never be found . . . by Moreby, specifically.”
Something started to tickle at the edge of Ty’s thoughts, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. “Then . . .”
Dawson grinned, and with his dead face, in the half-light of the narrow beam, it wasn’t a comforting sight. “Think about it, Ty: if we could get Moreby in here . . .”
Ty did understand now, “. . . he’d be trapped. Truly trapped – he couldn’t reach out, move on, any of it.”
“Right. And I’m betting it would also sever his connection to the intelligent ones. No more hive mind. Hell, it might even remove their intelligence altogether.”
“But . . .” Ty looked anxiously up at Dawson. “Wouldn’t that mean that . . . you . . .?”
“Not if I’m in here with him.”
In the brief time he’d known Dawson, Ty had come to like him a great deal; like Ames Parker, he took his duty seriously and displayed compassion along with courage. But this was too much – damning himself wasn’t listed on the job description. “You can’t do it. We’re talking about sealing him in here forever, Dawson. My God, you saw what it did to Latrobe.”
“I did, and I’m prepared to accept that fate. I don’t want to find out later on that Moreby found a way out of here when nobody was looking . . . so, I’ll stay and look.” Dawson turned away for a moment, then said, softly, “Besides, if this works and you win . . . it’ll be your world, not mine.”
Ty pushed down his emotions (fury at the unfairness, despair at the chance of ever winning) and focused on the situation. “Okay, fine. That just leaves the biggest question, then: how do we get him down here?”
Dawson stepped closer to Ty. “That’s why you had to come down here: I know how to do it, and if I leave here Moreby will know, too.”
“How?”
Dawson told him.
Steele: Mr. Moon, we of course invite you to stay with us—
Moon: Me and Maxi, right?
Steele: Of course. But we’ll need to find a job for you.
Moon: Great. I want to work.
Steele: Is there anything in particular you’d be interested in doing?
Moon: Well . . . I don’t know much about politics, and I’d be a pretty crappy soldier, but I’m organized and I’ve got a good memory, and . . .
Steele: Weren’t you majoring in Business in College?
Moon: Yeah, but I dropped out in my second year – couldn’t keep up with tuition any more. I was going to work for a while to save up enough to go back . . . my goal’s always been to open my own restaurant.
Steele: Do you have any accounting experience?
Moon: A little. My boss had me doing some of the books at my last restaurant job.
Steele: Good enough. I’m thinking we can find you something in either an aide position or maybe the GAO . . . once we get an economy up and running again.
Moon: Wow . . . um, that would be amazing. Ms. Steele . . . this might sound like bullshit, but – well, I really want to help. I want to see us come back, and if I can help make that happen . . . well . . .
Steele: That doesn’t sound like bullshit at all, Mr. Moon – I think most of us here feel that way. Welcome to the team.